Currently, there exists many navigation systems that provide information about a user's surroundings and geographical information. Some GPS navigation systems appear as an animated 2D image on a specific device such as a BlackBerry®, iPhone®, cell phone or a specific GPS device such as Garmin®. These 2D systems are designed to provide navigation information on an animated street map view. The GPS systems can provide a street view, a satellite view and a hybrid view of a map. However, it can be distracting for a user to view their surroundings while looking at a secondary device. It can also be disorienting for a user to try to relate the animated map view to the real world images seen by the user and attempt navigation at the same time. As well, these GPS devices/applications provide a limited amount of information about the user's surroundings. For example, they may provide an animated street map view, a compass, and directional information to navigate the user to a desired location.
There are also some 3D GPS systems that provide a limited amount of navigation information on windshields of vehicles or airplanes. Such navigation systems referred to as heads up displays, project basic directional information for guiding a user regarding their current location and/or destination location. For example, in one case a virtual cable line is projected on a windshield to show the direction which the user should navigate on the highway. Alternatively, a 3D compass is projected onto the window of a fighter plane to show the current position, altitude and bearing of the plane to allow a pilot to know which direction they are facing.
Generally, augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with virtual computer-generated imagery—creating a mixed reality. The computer-generated images are displayed as a layer over a user's view of the physical world. With this extra information presented to the user, the physical world can be enhanced or augmented beyond the user's normal experience. AR systems are also now in everyday use on mobile devices, such as iPhone® and BlackBerry® devices, where the device's screen is used to show merged live video from its camera with virtual elements placed on the display. Navigation using Augmented Reality methods typically is done using annotations and text descriptions on the live scene to provide information about the physical world. However, this approach occludes the live scene and provides a limited amount of information about the physical world. Further, it is difficult for a user to relate the virtual imagery to the physical world.
Accordingly, the existing GPS systems present limited amount of information about a user's surroundings and present difficulties for a user to navigate to a desired location while referring to and trying correlate an animated map view on a GPS device screen to the real-world.